Many, many moons ago, I taught a wine appreciation class at East Carolina University in the Hospitality Department. It was a learning time for someone with no experience in academia, and I thoroughly enjoyed my Monday evenings traveling to Greenville to teach a curriculum I had created to sometimes close to 100 students. In addition to experiencing a new field, I also had the privilege of connecting to young adults who were seriously exploring the world of wine and food as it related to becoming a possible career.
One of those special connections was with a woman named Lilly Gray Warren, whose eyes would light up when she spoke of how much she loved learning about all things culinary.
I graduated from teaching to opening a brewery and Lilly Gray graduated from ECU continuing her path in all things gastronomy, including raising suckling pigs in Oregon along with a host of other super cool wine and food ventures.
Last October, when Stephen and I released our On the Square Cookbook, one of the events affiliated with the launch was a dinner at Fearrington House in Pittsboro where the talented chefs in the kitchen prepared a meal of recipes from the book. It was an amazingly special event, and a nod to the semester when I bartended there and met a sommelier for the first time.
Unbeknownst to me, Lilly Gray bought a ticket to this event and showed up surprising me, and moving me to tears hearing that she had left Oregon and was leasing land in Pittsboro where she intended to farm and steward the land, raising chickens, bees, and ducks and growing produce using the best practices. It was awe inspiring to see this motivated and caring person so grown up and so clear about what she wanted to do and how she wanted to do it.
For the past nine months, Lilly Gray has texted me and kept me abreast of how her efforts were progressing as well as informing me about her monthly pop up wine dinners hosted at her farm on the night of the full moon. It took me almost a year, but this past Monday, I had the killer privilege of taking my daughter Cynthia to Pittsboro for the Sturgeon Moon dinner at Honey Hush Flower Co.
I feel like this is where music should start playing, and all I’m thinking about is Teardrop by Massive Attack as the perfect song to convey how perfectly perfect the evening was. Click on the link to listen as you read the rest of this post.
The farm is located off a dirt road with ducks and chickens waiting for you as you pull up the driveway.
Lilly Gray stood with a chilled bottle of big table farm ‘Laughing Pig’ Rosé, pouring 3-4 ounce pours in precious mason jars. big table farm is the winery where she worked in Oregon, and they have been huge supporters and champions of Lilly Gray and her work. A small table with deviled duck eggs and farm house Cheddar drizzled with her honey and crackers stood right beside her.
While we sipped Rosé and got to know one another, Lilly Gray graciously toured us all along the property showing us wisteria vines, her bees, the fig tree and the garden that she has planted and is constantly nurturing.
After the tour, we sat down to a family style supper at a charming farmhouse table located directly beside the garden. The best part for me was having Lilly Gray seated at the table with us as she talked about what she had prepared along with her personal why. Her dear friend John who had flown in from Colorado helped clear and serve the food—it was as beautiful as it comes.
Massaged Kale Salad in a peanut vinaigrette with beet greens and chillied peanuts greeted us when we sat down followed by a tri-tip steak with roasted onions; pink peas with pickled okra (and crispy bacon pieces in a bowl on the side in case you wanted to add, and I did); roasted beets; homegrown tomatoes and cucumbers; homemade hushpuppies with her honey butter—not one ounce went to waste as we passed the plates and fellowshipped together while the sturgeon moon played hide and seek in the sky. The evening ended with a pistachio crusted tart filled with Marscarpone and topped with her figs.
When you do things as cooly as Lilly Gray, I feel almost positive that only the most interesting people will be in attendance to appreciate it. A yogi mom with her two daughters (a chef and a farmer); a best friend and his wife who forage mushrooms; a college buddy (and former student of mine) who flew in from Colorado; Seth from Raleigh Wine Shop and his delightful girlfriend Laura; Lilly Gray; Cynthia and me; a talented and caring photographer Stacy Sprenz who has been supporting Honey Hush Flower Co. since this venture began. It was as if we all had known each other our entire lives and as time does, it flew from light to night at warp speed.
Because I have truly the best family and friends, a cousin who lives in Pittsboro had kindly allowed Cynthia and I to stay in her barn so we didn’t have to drive back to Tarboro.
We slept like babies who had been fed a gracious plenty and I was fortunate enough to get a quick visit in with my cousin early Tuesday morning before heading back to Tarboro. The immense gratitude for how the universe tilts and tosses and tumbles us all around to connect and reconnect and reconnect again brings me warmth and wholeness.
This past year, I have been hyper focused on the full moons, researching the dates and meanings, reading anything pertaining to their story.
On Monday in late August, when the sturgeon moon took center stage in the night sky debuting as the first super moon of 2024, I took comfort in being a part of a dinner that emanated connectivity—connectivity to the place, to the people and to a sense of peace that only comes when both are in harmony under a full moon.
What cousin lives in Pittsburgh and it looks delicious